


there are monsters in the dark (they’re not gonna keep us apart)

by krinka



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Supernatural
Genre: Bobby Singer Deals With Idjits, F/M, I just found this tag and I don't know where it's been all my life, Kid Dean Winchester, Kid Sam Winchester, Kid Winchesters (Supernatural), M/M, Multi, Pre-Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve is a good babysitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 15:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19793782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krinka/pseuds/krinka
Summary: Singer's Salvage Yard is a dump. Steve doesn't know why Nancy and Jonathan are here, but he knows they must be. He’s gotten enough info from the kids – from Will weeding answers from Jonathan over the phone to Mike producing a stray and well-used business card for this very place – to know he’s where he’s supposed to be.He just doesn’t understand why. Jonathan had never been that into cars. Not like Steve, and even Steve wouldn't drive all the way to freaking South Dakota for a check-up..or: a few years after graduating high school, Steve decides to do something about his unfortunate attractions and gets roped into the world of professional monster hunting instead.





	there are monsters in the dark (they’re not gonna keep us apart)

Singer's Salvage Yard is a dump. Steve doesn't know why Nancy and Jonathan are here, but he knows they must be. He’s gotten enough info from the kids – from Will weeding answers from Jonathan over the phone to Mike producing a stray and well-used business card for this very place – to know he’s where he’s supposed to be.

He just doesn’t understand _why_. Jonathan had never been that into cars. Not like Steve, and even Steve wouldn't drive all the way to freaking _South Dakota_ for a check-up.

The man who answers the door is rough looking, warn well past the thirty-odd years under his belt.

"Whatcha want boy?" the man, presumably Singer himself, all but growls.

Steve throws his hands in the air in surrender. "Hi," he offers, then schools his voice into something less meek "I'm looking for Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers."

The man's eyes narrow, turn suspicious. He looks Steve over like he's about to either dissect him on the spot or pull out a shotgun and demand he get off his property.

He does neither. Instead, he asks "What're they to you?"

Well, Nancy and Jonathan are a lot of things to Steve. Nancy was his girlfriend, at one point, and Jonathan the town weirdo. He's pined after the both of them for a good three years, ever since the two of them become a thing. Probably longer. He probably wouldn't have even realized his feelings for the both of them if it weren’t for Robin. Actually, this entire cross-state trek had happened because Robin had convinced Steve to visit his 'soul-mates' (he hated her for calling them that, hated how it made him all warm and jittery and unsure of himself) and get his act together, get some closure and finally move on.

And, okay, he wasn't supposed to get so freaking mushy and spiritual over the answer. Geez.

"They're old friends," Steve says, after a too-long pause. "We go way back."

"Why you looking for them?"

Steve bristles. He's travelled across four states to be here, the fuck does this guy think he is?

"You know what, they're here, right?" Steve bites out, stepping closer to this would-be gatekeeper "So I might as well just-"

"Hold your horses, boy." Singer bites right back "My house. Don't disrespect me."

Steve subsides. God, he's a mess. He’s not going to get anywhere like this.

He breathes in, out, says "Sorry, sir. But they're my friends."

_No, they're not. They're so much more than that._

Singer's gaze bores down on Steve, stripping him down to his bones. Steve squirms but holds the guy's gaze because – well, he's stared down literal monsters, some grizzly stranger's judgmental stare is nothing in comparison. However, when Singer does smiles, Steve decides this guy must have seen some shit too. He stomps down the urge to step back, lest the man’s face split into some gore nightmare fuel, courtesy of the mind-flayer.

But Singer only tips his head back and hollers "Wheeler, Byers - some fanboy friend of yours is here to see you!"

Before Steve can protest the descriptor, Nancy and Jonathan appear at the end of the long entrance hall and freeze. For a second, they just stare at him. Then, in perfect unison, they exclaim "Steve!" and rush over to the front door. Though they don't look anything other than confused, Steve can't help but think they don't look particularly happy to see him. Self-esteem issues, Robin would have said – voice caught somewhere between teasing and reprimanding and something entirely, uniquely Robin. Steve hates that she convinced him to do this, and hates it even more that she isn't here with him. He's going to mess this up, he knows he is.

But he's already here, and he's doing this so shit. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

"Hi," he says, aiming for casual. 

"Steve,” Nancy breathes “what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood." He shuffles, suddenly feeling very, very awkward.

"Steve Harrington." Nancy intones his name in that particular way she uses when she wants to call him an idiot. She doesn't. Instead, she says "You should come inside."

He's dreamt about this before – when he couldn't stop himself about fantasizing about being loved and accepted by them. But this? Nancy welcoming him in after months of silence with Jonathan's soft, small, bemused smile by her side? This feels like coming home – or a home, different from the empty house he lived in in Hawkins where his father still loomed in every shadow. This feels like falling in love all over again. And, okay, maybe he's exaggerating a little bit, but its how he feels. God forbid anyone finds out, let alone Nancy and Jonathan.

The moment is broken by a loud snort. Singer steps back anyway, allowing Steve entry into his home.

"Don't go making my house into a teen telenovela." the man grumbles, before shuffling into one of the rooms down the hall.

Jonathan colors, coughs a nervous kind of laugh. Nancy ushers Steve in and closes the door. That's that. No going back.

* * *

The inside of Singer's house is as decrypt as the outside, Steve notes as he's led into a living room that's more library than anything else. Both are littered with valuable junk - with broken down Chevrolets and books that look older than the acquaintance between American soil and Harrington blood. Both Jonathan and Nancy are the type to pick though the coals to find that one diamond. Jonathan's led by intuition, patience and the willingness to see things as they are. Nancy's the type to see the worth, the practical value and application of Jonathan's discovery. Which, Steve thinks, pretty much sums up their whole dynamic.

The stench of something burning cuts sharply through the stagnant air that always lingers in book-stuffed rooms. Jonathan curses and bolts towards the adjunct room – which Steve now sees is a kitchen.

"I got it." Singer's voice sounds from the stove in a low growl "Don't want you to burn the house down, you idjit."

Steve's beginning to wonder if Singer's default setting is bulldog, but Jonathan only heaves a grateful sigh at the man and says: "Thanks Bobby."

So Singer has a first name. Go figure. Another puzzle piece lands square in his hand. Now, if only Steve could understand what it all _meant_. He's tried to, of course he has – but he's not Nancy, he's not a genius.

The thing is, Steve has no idea why they're here. It's been a year and a half since Nancy and Jonathan left Hawkins to pursue their studies at NYU – journalism, the both of them. The kids need more tutoring than babysitting these days, but Henderson still hangs out with him and he'd gotten close to Will and El. He tries not to pity them, because they don't need that. They need a friend. Part of Steve wonders if he got close to Will so he could be closer to Jonathan in some weird, indirect way. Jonathan frequently sends postcards, which are all taped to Mrs Byers' fridge now. He calls home often, and on the not so rare occasion that he's there, Steve even gets to exchange a few pleasantries with him and everything.

It's been – it hasn't been lonely without them, precisely, but their absence had pressed down on him, like a stone weighing him down, making it hard to move on or do much of anything, for that matter. Robin had teased him relentlessly, until she’d realized just how bad he had it.

"So, w-what are you doing here?" Jonathan asks, his old, childhood stutter resurfacing. He's nervous, which only makes Steve even more uneasy.

"Oh, funny, yeah, I wanted to ask you the same question."

Nancy says "It's complicated," at the same time Jonathan grumbles "Murray Bauman."

"Murray Bauman." Repeats Singer. There's a crackle of a laugh from the kitchen, and then Singer emerges in the archway separating the kitchen and the library "Can't believe the dunce was right 'bout the government doing supernatural experiments. He was never a good hunter, an' too unreliable as a lore expert to be anyone's back-up. Turns out he can spot talent when he sees it."

"Murray... recommended us to Bobby," Nancy admits with a strange hesitancy.

"And Bobby is now the babysitter of four," Singer says, throwing a wary glance at Steve. Before Steve can question Singer's ability to count or protest about needing a babysitter, Singer hollers "Dean! Sam! Stop loitering on the stairs and get your asses down here!" before directing a "Your friend stayin'?" at the three of them.

Jonathan startles in that way he does when he's in the darkroom for too long and someone barges in. "Oh, sorry Bobby. Steve Harrington. Bobby Singer."

"Bobby Singer. Steve Harrington." Nancy finishes, gesturing at each of them.

"Yeah, yeah, let's eat already." Singer rumbles, shuffling back into the kitchen just as two kids run down the stairs – well, the bigger one runs down with the smaller one on its back. The bigger one looks about seven, maybe eight. The smaller one can't be older than three. They look like two flannel-swaddled koalas. They stop right in front of Steve, staring at him with an unsettling intensity.

"You're Aunt Nancy's and Uncle B's friend?" the older kid asks "The one who has a spiked bat and always comes when they’re in trouble?"

Oh, God – Nancy and Jonathan actually talk about him. Steve tries valiantly not to feel like a giggling little high-school girl.

"That's me," Steve says, when he's relatively certain he can talk without embarrassing himself.

"Are they in trouble?" asks the smaller one. Which one is he? Sam? Dean?

"What?" Steve splutters "No, relax, kid. Nobody's in trouble."

 _No one here's in need of saving_ , he doesn't say.

 _It's not a bad thing to admit to needing someone's help, dingus,_ Robin's voice echoes in his head, accusatory, as he sits down to have dinner with Singer's family and the two people he's still pining over.

* * *

After dinner, the three of them sit on the porch while Singer puts his sons to bed. Which is honestly more than Steve’s dad has ever done for him, so Steve can be excused if he's already starting to warm up to the grizzly bastard.

He clears his throat "So, ah, Singer some kind of grizzled old reporter of legend or what? You said some guy name Murray recommended you."

"Uh, it's not that, exactly." Jonathan offers, nervously.

"Then what are you doing?"

Nancy and Jonathan share a look and then say, in perfect unison "Monster hunting."

It says a lot about his life that Steve's immediate instinct is to go grab his spiked bat from his trunk.

"You're serious?" Steve demands. "Monster hunting? After everythig we've gone through in Hawkins, you go to another state – to freaking South Dakota, to go monster hunting?"

Nancy has that look again, like she's going to call him an idiot and mean it this time, but Steve doesn't care. He's not backing down from this.

He swallows down the manic worry building in his throat and says "Please tell me you're joking."

Nancy bites her lip, but settles on "Bobby's just training us up a bit."

"Training?"

Jonathan sighs. It's loud and frustrated and tired. Pretty much how Steve feels right now.

"Bad stuff keeps happening to us Steve, to the people around us. We need to be ready for it." Jonathan says, in the voice of a gentle giant - gentle enough for you to trust, giant enough he could hurt you without even trying.

Steve sighs in frustration "So this is what, some monster hunting crash course?"

"It's more research really." Nancy says "Bobby really knows this stuff."

Steve runs his hands through his hair, feeling suddenly and utterly hopeless. He came here to get some closure on this clusterfuck of having a crush on two people – people he hasn’t _seen_ in months – and then hopefully move on and here they are _going off into freaking danger_ like they’re invincible. Fuck, what if they _die_? What if they die and no one’s the wiser? What if they die and Steve doesn’t _know_?

He can’t deal with this. So he turns with a frustrated sound, pacing the length of the hallway, and contemplates bounding down the steps leading down to the salvage yard, where his car is parked. Driving away, like he refused to do the first time the three of them faced down a literal monster together. A small hand grabs his forearm, and he stops.

"Steve," Nancy says imploringly "At least stay the night."

"Yeah man," Jonathan says, putting a warm hand on Steve shoulder "It's a long drive, and you're probably exhausted as it is."

These two will be the death of him, Steve thinks, but he stays anyway.

(He always does.)

* * *

Steve and Jonathan end up sleeping on the library floor, since there aren’t enough beds upstairs. They’d had a fight about who would get to sleep on Singer's ratty couch, and both ended up stubbornly sleeping on the carpet. Or trying to sleep.

Steve’s practically vibrating with questions, so when Jonathan finally breaks the silence it feels like a blessing.

“How’d you find us?” he asks.

“I have an army of teenage minions. You think anything weird goes on that they don’t know about?” Steve laugh is a short, aborted thing. He’s just glad they told him, even if it were to play match-maker. Honestly, when he first heard Nancy and Jonathan weren’t spending summer holidays in NY as interns, he’d thought the worst – at least in terms of alien invasion or Demogorgons and other shitty, impossible things that tend to happen to the lot of them.

Jonathan laughs. He has a nice laugh, though Steve can’t help but think it’s too quiet. “Yeah, okay. Because you’re Steve, the King of Hawkins High School even now.”

Steve winces. Jonathan stops laughing and rubs at his neck awkwardly. “Ouch, okay, sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound bitter.” he apologizes.

“Nah, its fine.” Steve is quick to assure.

“It’s not. I’m sorry.” Jonathan says, and it actually makes Steve feel better. “So, what are you doing these days?”

Steve shrugs “Nothing special, still scooping ice-cream at Scoops Ahoy – trying to save up for college. Most of it goes to food and rent though. Been crashing at Robin’s for a few weeks – my folks don’t want to see me anymore. But her new girlfriend is threatening to throw me out so I thought I’d give them some space, you know? Visit you and Nancy in New York.”

“Except we weren’t there.” Jonathan finishes with a sigh.

“Yeah, except you weren’t there.” Steve echoes “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell your mom. Your brother was more than helpful. So, were Dustin and Mike, actually. Will really looks up to you by the way.”

Jonathan snorts disbelievingly. Steve nudges him with his elbow.

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, striking up random conversation about nothing and everything and letting it die.

"What are you going to do?" Steve asks at some point.

"Finish college.” Jonathan says, almost automatically “Maybe get a job, maybe do some freelance. Me and Nancy can always hunt, but being normal... the opportunity for that doesn't come very often, nor does a job that pays well."

"Maybe I can chip in." Steve offers, only half-joking.

He can practically feel Jonathan bristle.

"I don't need your charity." he bites out.

Steve kicks himself. Shit, he feels like such an asshole right now and he's not even the rich kid anymore. He's not rich at all.

"Not charity man," Steve says, trying to back-paddle fast "three-wheeling – a motorbike with three wheels is less prone to crashing and burning than a two-wheeler. More financial stability for the three of us. You and Nancy work, hunt and I just swing my bat and do the rest."

Okay, that was bad even by his standards. Three-Wheeler – as if both he and Jonathan are going to marry into Nancy's family or something. Honestly, Steve would really like to rid himself of his cursed surname - but shit, he shouldn't be thinking of doing it like that. And motorbikes?

"Did you just compare our... partnership to a three-wheeled motorbike?"

Apparently, Jonathan latches onto that part too. Shit.

"Maybe?" Steve offers, and thinks, absurdly: _is that a yes?_

It's quiet for a few moments. Steve bites his lip, but right before he decides to say anything more, a new voice beats him to it.

"Jonathan?"

It's one of Singer's kids. The older one. Dean? Or was it Sam?

Jonathan solves Steve's dilemma by addressing the boy with a "Yeah, Dean?"

"Can we sleep with you guys?" the smaller one says, with almost perfect diction. Steve is impressed.

"What's wrong?" both Jonathan and he ask at the same time.

There's the sound of shuffling in the darkness of the entrance hall.

"Are you leaving? With him?" Sam asks haltingly.

"Are you going hunting, like dad?” Dean presses “Are you coming back?" 

Jonathan's gotten up by this point, is approaching the boys. Steve isn't far behind. God, this reeks of abandonment issues and parental negligence. Steve should know. And, wait, what about Singer? Who's he? An uncle? A surrogate father? Did he adopt these kids?

"No, no, we're staying, everything's fine," Jonathan is saying. “Steve came here to stay with us, he’s not here to take us away. He’s just here because we’re friends and he wanted to see us. Because he missed us.”

He meets his eyes then, as if in question, but Steve doesn't refute anything that's being said. Jonathan throws him a quick smile, which is both relieved and strangely happy, and they return to comforting Sam and Dean together.

Since they're all wide awake and are still coming down from one emotional high or another, the four of them end up playing cards on the floor, with Sam sitting in Dean's lap, helping him play.

It feels like acceptance.

* * *

"I hear you want to stay," Singer says to him the next day, while Nancy and Dean are shooting cans in the yard and Jonathan's cooking breakfast.

They're on Singer's porch and he's smoking while they watch Nancy correct Dean's stance. Sam's legs dangle over the edge of the porch where he's stuck them out through the wooden railing.

"You know how to shoot a gun?" Singer asks Steve. Steve snorts.

Singer doesn't react, just continues his questioning.

"You a good researcher?"

Steve shrugs "I'm okay."

“Can you cook?”

“I can scoop ice-cream and make it look pretty.”

"Got any specialities?"

Steve thinks for a bit, looking out at where Nancy and Dean are still shooting, and says: "I'm a hell of a babysitter."

* * *

Time passes. Steve becomes apprenticed to Bobby after months of haggling, and eventually Jonathan and Nancy leave for their second year at NYU. They call often, study hard, visit wherever they can. All three of them regularly return to Hawkins for the holidays and all the relevant birthdays and anniversaries. Two years later, when Bobby's confident Steve won't die on his first day on the job, Steve starts to travel around the country, mostly as the requested back-up of other hunters. 

He reads Nancy's articles wherever he is, leafs through magazines Will or Mrs Buyers had told him Jonathan had photographed for. He cuts them all out and places them in a photo album brimming with his dipshit surrogate children, because this is his family right now. He even includes a few of Sam and Dean and Singer, just because. 

* * *

Several years after they graduate from NYU, the Byers-Wheeler freelancing team becomes well-respected enough that they stop being freelancers and start writing for various big-city newspapers - mostly travel writing or some strange, sensational stories that the duo is inexplicably always the first one on the scene for.

(They're like superheroes, really, what with their double-lives - Spiderman and Black Canary, photographer extraordinaire partnered with a voice that demands to be heard, brilliant, complementary.)

(What does that make him, though?)

Meanwhile, the Byers-Harrington-Wheeler troika becomes relatively well-known in the hunting world. Nancy's and Jonathan's travel pieces provide a good cover and a good excuse to look into anything untoward in towns suspected of supernatural ailments. It makes Steve feel useless, sometimes – more so since Bobby basically took Dustin and Will as his lore apprentices.

And boy, hadn't that blown over well. Jonathan and Will had an argument – well, more of a tense conversation, because apparently how the Byers family tends to argue. Will says it’s like his childhood dream of becoming a wizard finally came true. Jonathan, however, hadn't really wanted his twice-screwed-over-by-supernatural-eldritch-creatures brother anywhere near potential danger. But Will hadn't wanted his big brother facing those things either. They come to an understanding eventually, agreeing that Will should at least know what dangers lurk in the world so that he can help Jonathan and Nancy and Steve – and Sam and Dean, now that they’re old enough to occasionally go hunting with their asshole of a father (Steve personally thought that fourteen was not at all a good age to start hunting but, well, Nancy had already all but bitten off Winchester's head already and he hadn’t budged).

Steve seriously can't stand the man. Dead wife his ass – John Winchester had two kids to take care of! He might as well have left them at Singer's permanently – that man, and those boys, deserved at least some semblance of a stable family.

Steve hopes he's given the kids that, however much – but Steve knows he’s more like the fun uncle from out of town; Nancy and Jonathan even more so. But hey, now that Dustin and Will (and, to an extent the other Hawkins kids) are in the picture, Steve feels slightly better about Sam and Dean’s support system – and his own, for that matter.

They're family, all of them. Professional monster hunters and all, they have each other’s backs.

**Author's Note:**

> I just needed Steve to babysit little Sam and Dean for me for a little while...


End file.
